


the beauty you keep beneath (I want to see it all)

by reflectionslie (fallsink)



Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: AU, Angst, F/M, lapslock, musings, steve backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 21:25:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11677377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallsink/pseuds/reflectionslie
Summary: when she asks what's it like, he answers "I don't know."it's both a lie and a truth.(in the brief moment while they are dancing in veld, he thinks of this)





	the beauty you keep beneath (I want to see it all)

**Author's Note:**

> so this started out as a 500w drabble when I finished watching WW for the first time mid-June  
> and as I have no control over my life, this is what ended up happening
> 
>  
> 
> [based on this chris pine quote](http://everynowandchen.tumblr.com/post/163683843380)

when she asks what it's like – making breakfast, getting a job, getting married, having children, and what not – he replies, "I don't know."

it's both a lie and a truth.

it's a lie because he _does_ know what it's like. he knows what’s it like to turn a spark into a love and a love into something so unspeakably beautiful, having experienced one before with someone else.  

years before the war, before all this, it had started with the young woman he met in new york on his travels, who caught his eye over her cup of macchiato as they sat facing each other, but at different tables. he still remembers how she had tucked her soft blonde hair behind her ear and smile into a small folded piece of paper when he was emboldened to ask her for her name and address.

and yes, she would like to see him again. so they did.

she had laughed at him the next morning after she joined his bed a few dates later, when she woke to him burning the eggs and toast. though it didn’t burn quite as much as when his cheeks flared up at her shy laughter, from both embarrassment and enjoyment, he still kissed her silly after moving her hands from her lips.

it became a game as he tried to break her habit, trying to get her to stop hiding her smile behind her hand when they were together. it worked most of the time.

they kissed each other countless times over the two years they dated, but it didn’t compare to the kiss they shared when they married, in the dead heat of summer in the garden near their jobs.

it was a small and quick affair, with only a few of their closest family and friends there. but in the midst of so much love, the proof of _their_ love heavy on his new wife’s belly and due in six months, he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

the birth of their son had happened on a day he was overtime at work. but when he lifted and held the little bundle in his arms, he found pieces of his own azure eyes in his child’s. and then he finally knew what it meant when people told him that he has sky blue eyes – a kind of blue that makes him feel closer to heaven.

it's a lie, when he says “I don’t know” to diana now, because he also knows what it means to lose that love, that life and security he had worked so tirelessly for.

he refuses to remember them as he had last seen them – bloody, broken in the wake of the bomb that went off far too close, during in their brief stay in France. now forever stuck in an unfamiliar land with empty eyes trained only on a sky vault that he wouldn’t see in hopefully a long, long time.

that’s the last time he sees his heart. it’s a crumpled mess, all gushing blood and torn apart muscles before he buries it tucked in between his wife and son underneath the oak tree where he had married. he couldn’t even pay for a tombstone when he’s called away. he’s gone with their names carved on the rib bones over the place his heart once had been.

since then it wasn’t about him anymore.

it became about his home country, this godforsaken war. along with all his grief that was his price for love, he pushes out any of his wants, needs, dreams, in favor for the mission he is given. it’s about saving as many people as he can, so recklessly and singlemindedly.

 _this, this,_ the clockwork machine in his head chants like a mantra, _this, this, only this_.

and it is only that for a long, long time, until he is saved by her.

“I don’t know” is an outright lie. yet, looking into diana's eyes in this moment, both strong and childlike beneath the gentle snowfall, it's also a truth.

being her partner in the war, to be beside her as she becomes a new warrior atlas and carrying every inch of world weight with great purpose, has him so breathlessly in awe. yet he can't help but wonder when he watches her in her quiet moments, when she doesn't think anyone is looking.

when she's cleaning her sword, shield, and gauntlets after battle, almost impassive, almost plain;

when she's walking among forward-facing people and she's the only one open, wide-eyed, and curious;

when she's asleep and finally in her most vulnerable state, all rising chest, fluttering eyelashes, loosening of all tensions.

he wonders what she had been before the universe had wanted anything from her, and wonders if she remembers too.

he also allows himself to think about what she'd be like in this world when the fighting is over. what did _her_ people do without war?

he imagines her after this never far from combat, training as if war is a storm on the horizon to be always prepared for. her battle-worn armor more than a second skin beneath her button-up shirts and skirts, nails kept short and raven hair pulled taut.

but he also sees her being a protector of a different kind. a translator or diplomat perhaps, but more likely a teacher. he knows how she loves children, and how much more she’d love to have her own, and he knows it will be a long, _long_ time before he can give them to her (if she will have him after all of this, of course).

during the breathable moments between battles, when he’s not gazing at her like someone had just told him to memorize her every feature, he lets himself wander in a fantasy. when he’s drifting off to sleep in belgium, he takes one lingering look before letting his eyelids flutter shut, finally allowing himself to imagine.

in this alternative reality, he’s the one who laughs as she burns the eggs and toast. all the little tricks and rules of living with modern technologies so beyond her wildest dreams. he almost regrets showing her ice cream, because now he’s addicted to her fascinated learning, and knows exactly what he’s missing.

within this private universe, it’s not just coffees, bitter and sweet; phones, tangled wires or not; perfumes, over- and underwhelming; gardens of flowers and plants from across the globe; shelters of animals... he wants to show her it all, and with nothing but her continued presence in his life asked in return.

but she’d give him more, because that’s just how she is. the uninhibited wonder, the probing curiosity, the loving appreciation for everything that exists beyond the use of war.

he doubts they would date before going straight to engagement, because if there’s anything that war teaches him, it’s that nothing lasts forever. maybe not for her, but certainly for him, who walks in tandem with time, not apart from it.

maybe they’d get married in the dead of winter like this, with snowflakes an ephemeral crown upon her unbound midnight hair. it’d still be a small affair, but with laughter filling the spaces, it’d be just as full as a crowded hall. only she could wear white and have snow be less transient than her.

but it would be a long while before they’d expand their family with children, and he can’t say he’d blame her for thinking so. so perhaps they’d compromise by adopting a dog or two first.

something less like heartbreak and more like yearning floods up to him when he tries to imagine the children he may never meet. they’d be gorgeous creatures, even more beautiful in their innocence and eagerness to know the world.

still, they’d be strong, both he and she would see to that. capable as a sword that only serves those who are worthy to wield it. and only those strong and steady in both body and spirit could ever dare to hope, because they’d have to match the children of warrior parents.

he’d only wish that one would have his eyes. the world needs more of diana than him, so he wants them to take after her more than anything. it doesn’t matter to him which child does – because he knows he will have at least one of each – but there is something so primally sentimental if it’s his daughter that inherits his sky blue eyes. so that when (not if) he leaves, she can gaze up at her mother and remind her of his undying love.

but long before that, in this other universe, he would love her in any way he can. he’s learned many of her habits – the quirk of her chin when she’s been thrown off her feet in battle, the hum she makes in affirmation, the need to touch things beneath her honest fingers and know them – but he wants to learn them all.

at least he doesn’t have to pry her hands from her mouth before kissing the laughter from her lips, but maybe she’ll only let him do so in their private time. or she wouldn’t care and tug him by the jacket lapels and steal his and any onlooker’s breaths away. their fingers will lace through the other’s so effortlessly when they travel together, though it’s just merely a statement of something that everyone already knows from their eyes. and he will hold her close around her slender waist, her back against his ribs, as their children play on fields that used to be graveyards, until they are old enough to understand.

he wonders if there is another timeline where they are laughing together. laughing at a possibility they would have met in a war zone and collided right in the middle, seeing nothing less than spectacular fireworks.

together forever.

but, that’s just pipe dreams evaporating into air. just as the hope that this war could be over in his lifetime.

yet when her depthless eyes are shining so brightly with resolution, he believes that, if anyone, she would be the one who could achieve anything and everything this universe could ever hope to offer.

she does nothing halfheartedly or half done. he adores her for it, the way she laughs, cries, screams, fights with her whole body. pouring everything in, leaving no room for distance or space or misunderstandings between her and what she wants.

war takes and takes and takes more than anyone could ever offer, and steals some more. but it also gives, in its strange and inexplicable way. like the tide that always laps at the shore, it also leaves gifts in its wake. it gives change, opportunity, hope.

he touches her cheek then and can't help but marvel how devastatingly lovely she is when she is so unapologetically _her_. the look in her eyes is so warmly invasive against the cold but not unwelcome, and every point where they touch is like the snowfall they are swaying under – soft, light, full of promise.

when he had fallen in love before, it was something more like settling down – quiet, comforting, without fanfare.

but falling for diana, it truly is falling, messily, passionately, yet so so right. she was once the island from this side of a distant beach. it’s a depthless sinking, an endlessness, a drowning.

yet now there is the tender comfort of home settling in his ribcage, the catching of breath on every piece of her behind collarbones, the burning and aching answer to a question he hadn't known he always been asking.

so when she asks him then what's it like to live in his world without war, what he means by "I don't know" then is this –

"I don't know what it's like, to do all that – and so so much more – with _you_."

 

**Author's Note:**

> someone pls cry with me  
> and I will edit any mistakes later when I've cleared my eyes from these feels T_T


End file.
